Tim Pawlenty. Photo: Facebook

Gov. Tim Pawlenty sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Tuesday requesting an estimated $263 million in federal health care money through the recently enacted Federal Medical Assistance Percentages program. A critic of the new program, which was passed by Congress in August, Pawlenty signed an executive order barring state agencies from requesting “discretionary” grants under the federal health reform law. The FMAP will help fund Medicaid and foster care programs in Minnesota.

“The federal government should not deficit spend to bail out states and special interest groups,” Pawlenty said following the passage of FMAP. “Minnesota balanced its budget without raising taxes and without relying on more federal money. The federal government’s reckless spending spree must come to an end.”

In Tuesday’s letter to Sebelius he reiterated that concern, noting the “overspending by the federal government and the unbearable burdens that spending will place on our economy.”

But he also said the FMAP program is consistent with Minnesota’s policy goals and that the state gets only 72 cents for every dollar it pays into the federal government.

“By that measure, Minnesota is the fifth-largest subsidizer of the federal government among the fifty states,” he wrote.

Here’s Pawlenty’s letter:

9.07.10-FMAPLetter

President Barack Obama at Target Center, Sept. 12. Photo: Kathy Easthagen for the Minnesota Independent

Less than a week after President Barack Obama addressed a joint session of Congress in an effort to galvanize support for his ambitious health-care agenda, he brought the debate to the Target Center in Minneapolis. Speaking to a boisterous crowd of roughly 20,000 people Saturday afternoon, Obama made his case for dramatic changes to the country’s beleaguered health care system.

“It has now been nearly a century since Teddy Roosevelt first called for heath reform,” Obama told the crowd, which frequently interrupted him with applause. “It’s been attempted by nearly every president and Congress since. Our failure to get it done, year after year, decade after decade, it has placed a burden on families, on businesses and on taxpayers, and we can’t stand it any longer. … I might not be the first president to take up the cause of health care reform, but I am determined to be the last.”

The event had the feel of a campaign pep rally. Spectators did the wave and chanted “Yes we can!” Vendors hawked mini-donuts. If Tuesday’s address was designed to shake up the health-care debate and lay out an understandable framework for reform to the American people, the Minneapolis event was all about photo-ops and generating momentum.

It wasn’t the first time that Obama has utilized Minnesota as a backdrop for a high-profile event. In July of last year he traveled to the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul to declare victory in the Democratic primary.

Obama called on those in attendance to help build support for a health-care overhaul by talking with friends and co-workers about the need for significant changes. He also criticized his political opponents for spreading distortions about the health care plans being debated in Washington.

“We’ve heard scare tactics instead of honest debate,” Obama said. “Too many have used this opportunity to score short-term political points instead of working together to solve our challenges. I don’t know if you agree with me, but I think the time for bickering is over.”

Obama was flanked by two massive United States flags during the forty-minute speech, which largely echoed his remarks to Congress earlier this week. He vowed to protect Medicare for the elderly and make insurance affordable for all Americans, and to do so without increasing the federal deficit. Obama also reiterated his support for a government-run insurance option to compete with private insurance firms.

“You know and I know that health care is one of those fundamental struggles, because if you’re one of the tens of millions of Americans who have no health insurance, you live every day just one accident or illness away from bankruptcy,” he said. “And contrary to some of the myths out there, these aren’t primarily people who are deep in poverty. A lot of those folks are on Medicaid. These are people who are working every day. These are middle-class Americans.”

Obama was joined at Saturday’s event by Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius. She briefly addressed the crowd prior to the President’s speech.

“The status quo is not an alternative,” Sebelius said of the health-care system. “But get ready, Minnesota, because the special interests won’t give up easily.”

At the close of the event, Obama summoned an oft-told anecdote from the campaign trail about a diminutive South Carolina woman who was notorious for enthusiastically chanting. Her slogan: “Fired up! Ready to go!” It became a catchphrase of Obama’s presidential campaign. At Saturday’s event, supporters exited the Target Center chanting the slogan.

Clearly the president succeeded in firing up the faithful present at the rally. But it remains to be seen whether the event will have any affect on the debate playing out in Washington.

Photoessay: ‘Fired up’: Scenes from Obama’s health care rally

Elsewhere in Minnesota headlines today … 

BEMIDJI: Collin Peterson holds another town hall. If the 25-percent-loon quotient that the congressman dreads was in attendance, those folks were booing long-winded questions and the guy who called Obama “the boy king” along with everybody else. [Bemidji Pioneer]

FIRST CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT: Tim Walz warms up with telephone town hall. It was like an old-fashioned party line as Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and the congressman took questions on health care Tuesday; he’ll hold an in-person town hall in Mankato on Thursday. [Rochester Post-Bulletin]

STATEWIDE: Honey, it’s Amy Klobuchar on the phone. Minnesota’s senior senator and a doctor from the Mayo Clinic will be taking your calls on health care this Sunday at 7 p.m. [West Central Tribune]

MINNEAPOLIS: Park-tax petitions sufficient. An amendment to give the park board independent levy authority will be on the ballot in November, as long as the charter commission agrees to meet on its “off week” to okay it. [Star Tribune]

KANDIYOHI COUNTY: Officials see ordinance as “tool” to halt homecoming pranks. A regular victim of such hijinks already greets pranksters with a tool of his own: a squirt gun loaded with fox urine. [West Central Tribune]

ALEXANDRIA: Big Ole gets helmet-wings reattached. It was only a coincidence that repairs to the wind-damaged 28-foot fiberglass viking took place the same day Brett Favre flew into Minnesota on the wings of Zygi Wilf’s purple-and-gold airplane. [Alexandria Echo Press]

Titled, “Roadblocks to Health Care: Why the Current Health Care System Does Not Work For Women,” the report found that because women are less likely than men to be employed full time (52 percent versus 73 percent), women were less likely to have health insurance. Twenty-one million women were without health insurance in 2007.

“All Americans are suffering under the current system, but women and small businesses are paying a particularly heavy price,” said Sebelius in a statement. “Millions of women are uninsured, and small businesses are struggling to give their workers the care they need and deserve. We can’t wait to pass comprehensive health care reform and give women – and all Americans – the health care system we need.”

Single women are twice as likely as married women to lack health insurance, according to the report, with 24 percent of single women and 12 percent of married women without health insurance.

Health insurance premiums were also found to be higher for women. They paid 1 1/2 times more for health insurance on the individual market than men. Also, women used medical services more frequently than men, particularly reproductive health services.

“The report from Secretary Sebelius underscores the real need to ensure that women have access to quality, affordable reproductive health care as part of any health reform effort,” said Sarah Stoesz of Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota (PPMNS). “The findings of the report reaffirm what we see firsthand at Planned Parenthood health centers every day.”

Stoesz said that PPMNS has seen demand for long term contraception skyrocket in the last year, with a 54 percent increase.

“Women can do the math. They know if they are about to lose their insurance, if their hours are being cut back, that reliable long term contraception makes fiscal sense,” said Stoesz.

Hillary Clinton and daughter Chelsea, on-screen at the DNC. Photo: Jason Kosena/The Colorado Independent

On day two of the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Democrats finally went after Republican John McCain with some ferocity. Here’s a rundown of memorable moments and shout-outs to the locals, along with links to transcripts of Tuesdays speeches.

Sen. Hillary Clinton: “It makes a lot of sense that next week John McCain and George Bush will be together in the Twin Cities, because these days they’re awfully hard to tell apart.” (One quibble: As locals know, Minneapolis and St. Paul are anything but McSame.)

And: “You haven’t worked so hard over the last 18 months, or endured the last eight years, to suffer through more failed leadership. No way. No how. No McCain.”

Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius: “There’s no place like home, except for John McCain where there’s no place like home…like home…like home…like home…”

Pennsylvania Sen. Robert Casey: “Now they’re asking for four more years. How ’bout four more months?”

And: “John McCain calls himself a maverick, but he votes with George Bush 90 percent of the time. That’s not a maverick. That’s a sidekick!”

Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano: “Barry Goldwater ran for president, and he lost. Mo Udall ran for president, and he lost. Bruce Babbit ran for president, and he lost. For this next election, that’s one Arizona political tradition I’d like to see continue.”

New York Gov. David Paterson on John McCain: “If he’s the answer, then the question must be ridiculous.”

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland on McCain: “George W. Bush came into office on third base and stole second. And John McCain cheered him every step of the way. … We have to make sure everyone has a chance at bat.”

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer: “If you drill in all of John McCain’s backyards, even the ones he doesn’t know he has…that single-answer proposition is a dry well.”

And: “Barack Obama understands that the most important barrel of oil is the one you don’t use.”

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar: “If we are going to protect the family checkbook, we need a president who’ll fight for middle-class tax breaks and affordable health care and education. That’s why the Democratic women of the Senate say the women of this country need Barack Obama and Joe Biden in the White House.”